1. Field
The present general inventive concept relates to avionics devices, displays, and systems and methods of display for avionics devices. More particularly the inventive concept relates to methods and systems to select and display information on a display screen. The systems and methods allow for the selection and display of information using knobs to pan to desired location and to highlight and select the desired information for display, eliminating the need for a cursor function. The systems and methods also provide for multiple pages and/or multiple windows or “tiles” within these pages and/or windows simultaneously on a single screen of a display, with each window, page, and/or tile being fully controlled independently when selected. The present general inventive concept also provides methods and systems to navigate through the windows, tiles and/or pages.
The present general inventive concept also relates to systems and methods to provide multiple cues on an electronic display system altitude tape to a pilot in advance and impending approach to a predefined altitude. These systems and methods provide heightened safety by providing cues that operate in unison thereby increasing a pilot's situation awareness of an approaching critical altitude for flight and/or giving pilots an increased sense of rate of change in altitude during an approach to a critical altitude for flight.
The present general inventive concept also relates to systems and methods to employ variable resolution topographical data based on display range for an avionics navigation display. The present general inventive concept uses a smooth zoom between ranges. Both effects result in what appears to be a constant resolution smooth zoom while changing screen range.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional avionics displays use an X, Y cursor function to access items on avionics screens like airports, VOR's, and weather information based on down-linked reports such as METARS, AIRMETS, SIGMETS.
Conventional avionics displays are limited to providing a single function for a single page. Pop up displays are provided on some conventional avionics systems. These pop-up displays have limited functionality and cannot display other screens. Secondary information associated with a page that is not being displayed is displayed on a primary display page with the secondary function's data changed and combined into the primary display page and not represented as the original page and data. The secondary data is displayed and is not changeable by the user of these conventional displays.
Conventional systems use one selectable cue or bug to indicate to the pilot a selected altitude. This is problematic at least because the pilot must be prepared to make adjustments in an aircraft's heading immediately when the pilot receives the cue. Thus, a pilot who is not observing the particular system or otherwise is not waiting for the cue may result in passing the selected altitude thereby requiring altitude correction.
Conventional avionics displays currently are limited to one resolution, or at the most, limited to two (2) levels of resolution of topographical data for the terrain depiction on a navigation map. Conventional avionics displays do not store more than one level of terrain resolution in RAM and are limited in displaying terrain data by the transfer rates of the data storage device. This limitation of conventional displays results in an abrupt “step” or “jerk” in the display when a user of the conventional display switches from one resolution to another.